For various reasons, it is desirable to measure usage of online network-connected resources, and to attribute portions of such use to offline stimuli, such as TV or radio advertisements. Yet measuring effectiveness of TV advertisements is far more challenging than with online ads. Similarly, optimizing ads to a target demographic is far more difficult with TV than with online media. Customers almost always view ads on TV and make purchases (i.e. “convert”) through other channels including online purchases.
The most common industry approach for understanding who is viewing TV advertisements is the use of viewer panels. These are volunteer users who allow their activities to be monitored. The Nielsen panel contains 25,000 users (out of approximately 114.5 million television households) and so the Nielsen sample is less than 0.022% of population.
Other techniques for tracking TV ads include embedding special offers, phone numbers or tracking URLs into the advertisement. When a customer calls in to order, the company can uniquely identify the airing which the customer viewed because they use the phone number, URL, or redeem the offer. Such methods are generally referred to as “linking keys”. Linking keys have limited applications since only a small fraction of the population will ultimately use the embedded key—often customers convert without these tracking devices.
Various systems have attempted to attribute conversions to television ads using statistical models, such as those described in US Patent Application Publications 2012/0054019 and 2012/0054021.